Avian flu back in Montérégie, 125,000 birds euthanized

Avian flu has made a comeback in Montérégie with the migration of wild birds, resulting in the euthanasia of approximately 125,000 birds on four farms since the end of March.

Employees of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency dressed in white coveralls were also seen by TVA Nouvelles, Tuesday noon, when they seemed to be composting poultry carcasses on the Réal Côté poultry farm in rang Saint-Georges, in Ange-Gardien. This farm is separate from the Couvoir Côté bearing the same name, located nearby and which belongs to the Sollio Cooperative.

No one has been able to confirm whether this is one of the sites recently infected with bird flu.

The first cases of H5N1 were reported in a duck farm in the same municipality and then spread to a laying hen house, a hatching egg producer and finally a turkey farm.

Detected for the first time in Quebec in the spring of 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 has already affected many poultry producers in the region.

Last fall in Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby, the neighboring municipality located regarding ten kilometers away, two farms had been ravaged by avian flu.

About 45,000 chickens and 30,000 laying hens, as well as 11,500 turkeys had been infected.

In April 2022, three Ducks of Lac-Brome production sites were hit hard by the flu, including the head office site in Knowlton, Lac-Brome.

About 150,000 poultry had to be euthanized and 400,000 Pekin duck eggs destroyed.

In the vast majority of cases, the source of contamination is cross-contamination; the virus can be introduced into a farm by humans or contaminated equipment, making its spread even more difficult to contain.

With the seasonal migration of wild birds just beginning, these new outbreaks are hardly reassuring.